Here are the steps to follow to create a new compiz release:

1) Ensure that there are no local, uncommitted modifications.
   It's probably good enough if "git diff HEAD" doesn't output
   anything and your "master" and "origin" branches are at the
   current revision.

2) Verify that the code passes "make distcheck"

	Running "make distcheck" should result in no warnings or
	errors and end with a message of the form:

	==============================================
	compiz-X.Y.Z archives ready for distribution:
	compiz-X.Y.Z.tar.gz
	==============================================

	(But the tar file isn't actually ready yet, as we still have
	some more steps to follow).

3) Fill out an entry in the NEWS file

	Shift through the logs since the last release. This is most
	easily done with a comand such as:

		git log --stat compiz-X.Y.Z..

	where X.Y.Z is the previous release version.

	Summarize major changes briefly in a style similar to other
	entries in NEWS.

4) Increment version number in configure.ac:

	Increment to the micro version number to the next larger
	(even) number.

5) Commit the changes to NEWS and configure.ac

	It's especially important to mention the new version number in your
	commit log.

6) Run "make release-publish" which will perform the following steps
   for you:

	* Check that the version number ends with an even micro component
	* Check that no release exists with the current version
	* Verify that make distcheck completes successfully
	* Generate the final tar file
	* Generate an sha1sum file
	* Sign the sha1sum using your GPG setup (asks for your GPG password)
	* scp the three files to appear on
	  http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/individual/app
	* Place local copies of the three files in the releases directory
	* Tag the entire source tree with a tag of the form compiz-X.Y.Z, and
	  sign the tag with your GPG key (asks for your GPG password, and you
	  may need to set GIT_COMMITTER_NAME and GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL to match
	  your public-key's setting or this fails.)
	* Provide some text for the release announcement (see below).
	  If for some reason you lost this message,
	  "make release-publish-message" prints it for you.

7) Increment compiz_version_micro to the next larger (odd) number in
   configure, commit, and push.

8) Push the newly created tag out to the central tree with a command
   something like:

	git push compiz-X.Y.Z

9) Send a message to compiz@list.freedesktop.org to announce the
   new release using the text provided from "make release-publish",
   adding the excerpt from NEWS, your signature, followed by
   tacking on the detailed changelog-ish thing that gets mailed
   out when you push the tag (but not the diffstat thing).